1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an artificial seed manufacturing apparatus, and more particularly to an artificial seed manufacturing apparatus which encloses cultured tissues such as adventive embryos into capsules.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional artificial seed manufacturing apparatus of this kind is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. Heisei 3-127920, in which cultured tissues such as adventive embryos disperses is enclosed into a gelling agent with a material capable of gelling according to chemical reactions, and liquid droplets of the cultured tissues are supplied through a small hole into hardener, and the liquid droplets during the process of falling are sphericalized by surface tension. In the same Patent Publication, another conventional means continuously protrudes the cultured tissues from a nozzle into hardener to form them in a long string-like shape and cuts them in appropriate lengths.
A technique of Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. Showa 63-197530 moves an end of a hose connected to a sol supply tank in a planetary motion by using a planetary gear to drop sol, which has enclosures dispersed in a coating agent, from the end of the hose into a hardener tank below. A technique of Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. Showa 62-266137 uses centrifugal force to make the liquid droplets.
Of the means disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Heisei 3-127920, the former has a disadvantage that it is difficult to uniformly disperse a number of enclosures in a coating agent, so that the coating materials supplied into the hardener include those that contain the enclosures and those that do not, and these coating materials are mixed, making it necessary to provide a processing for sorting out those coating materials containing the enclosures.
The latter means has a disadvantage that it is extremely difficult to determine the position where the string-like coating materials into blocks are cut and that the number of cultured tissues enclosed in the cut coating blocks becomes unstable.
With the techniques of Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open Nos. Showa 63-197530 and Showa 62-266137 also, it is difficult to uniformly disperse a number of enclosures.
The cultured tissues as the enclosures, are valuable, so that when the number of enclosures is one, there is no waste but when it is more than one, they may be wasted. The coating blocks without enclosure must be removed by a troublesome selection process. With the above-mentioned methods, it is impossible to make arbitrary changes to the size of the coating materials and the number of enclosures.
With a seed coating apparatus (Japanese Utility Model Publication Laid-Open No. Heisei 5-7016) which coats an enclosure with a film of the coating material, it is possible to change the size of the coat diameter and the number of enclosures arbitrarily. In order to change the size of the coat diameter, however, it is necessary to adjust by manual the amount of coating material to be delivered. This apparatus, therefore, cannot be applied to an artificial seed manufacturing apparatus in which cultured tissues such as adventive embryos generally installed in an aseptic room are enclosed into capsules.